


In The Quiet

by softcorevulcan



Series: A part of the world [6]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M, Fingering, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Illyria being god-like, Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Restraint, light BDSM elements, mentions of Illyria once being an Eldritch-horror, past Lilah/Wesley mentioned, pining!Wesley, suggestions of monster!sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 08:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17556854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcorevulcan/pseuds/softcorevulcan
Summary: Wesley should have felt wrong. He didn’t. Nothing about it felt wrong. But he knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere good.That’s what he wanted to keep telling himself. That it wasn’t good.But it felt fine. It felt perfect.-Takes place in the same timeline as "Being in This World."





	In The Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> This story also works as a loose sequel to "The Experience of Intimacy," although the only thing that carries over is the stage of relationship development progressing, so the two stories can easily be read independently from each other.

Illyria is on a tirade again. She is also, incidentally, holding his hand, as they walk down the street.

They’re on a supply run, because there’s always more ingredients needed, always more spells. Wesley isn’t sure when he got so into spell casting - back when he dated a Warlock’s daughter, talented in her own right, he never invested this much energy in it.

He supposes, it’s prophecies, or spells, or trying (and failing) to train someone. He’s got to obsess with something. It’s easier that way.

Easier to deal with the fact life is spiraling, always spiraling, getting ever worse, and there’s always some disaster looming that he really should be smart enough to fix, to help fix, and yet - he never, ever, quite is.

“I was glorious. I had uncountable eyes, seeing everything - past, present, future - it was all within my domain. I hulked over the landscape.”

“I thought you were only fifteen feet tall,” he mutters, engaging. She seems pleased, when he does that.

It works, her hand relaxing more within his, the side of her lips tugging upward, just slightly. “I was, usually. But during battle, in some cases, I had assumed a height of several miles. I had to find a way to be competitive, when the enemy I sought to challenge, was titan in stature.” He nods, though this is all rather irrelevant, now. Fascinating, though. “You will be pleased to hear that I vanquished them. I always won.”

She is wistful, staring forward as they walk, and not really seeing anything. Not the atoms, or the plants, or the cracks on the sidewalk. She’s back in a world that’s gone now.

“I had many tentacles - seven larger ones, which served as appendages, arms - my skin was as my armor is now. Only, more. Leathery, solid, thicker than this flimsy mockery I have to make due with, when I am in this sort of form.” Wesley remembers statues he saw, or maybe petrified bodies - he didn’t think to ask, back then. Wouldn’t dare ask now. He’s seen some more hints, vague mentions in books -

Because he’s always researching. Always more, and it still feels like he’s going to come up short. There just isn’t enough time, in the world, to save it -

Illyria squeezes his hand, dragging him into reality. He smiles down at her, and it feels weak, pathetic, even to him. Illyria doesn’t point that out. She just meets him, gaze holding his until something settles, for her, and she determines she can look forward again.

“I miss my - arms. Now I only have two. It is so - limiting.”

“I imagine two is functional enough.”

“Of course you do. It’s all you’ve ever known.” Illyria’s head twitches, faces east now, and before Wesley even looks at the street sign, she’s turning them. “The store is this way, it smells.”

Of course it does. She can tell where all their shopping list necessities are, even at this distance. A little fallen-god gps. Cute.

Not cute. Not at all. He doesn’t know when his mind started betraying him, like this.

He supposes he’s always been a little predisposed, to be overly fascinated by the supernatural, the alien. If he hadn’t been, watcher training would’ve been a great deal less tolerable. He supposes, people with more healthy inclinations towards these sorts of things, wouldn’t have dedicated their lives to someone like Angel. Probably.

Then again, what does he know, about normal? Is anyone really normal? Who’s to say Illyria isn’t. She’s real enough, mortal enough, getting closer to human every day than Angel is ever likely to, frankly. Unfortunately.

“If I still had my arms, I could hold your limbs apart, and press upon you, and push inside your body all at once. As it is, I only have one hand to hold you down, and then one to touch. It’s terribly inconvenient.”

Wesley did something, a few days ago. Or rather, he let Illyria - no, he let them both - do something they probably shouldn’t have.

At the time, in the dark, Wesley knew it was not a good idea. It wasn’t as if he’d been confused, or distraught, or inebriated. Neither had Illyria - although she, perhaps, didn’t know exactly all of the very human reasons it was not going to lead to anything good. She didn’t have awareness of much of those things, yet, it was all still too raw - too bright and messy and much - for her to have nailed down those subtle particulars, that human adults ended up noticing, even if they might ignore them.

He’d ignored them.

Illyria had been in his arms, curled around him, like a metal cage but slightly more willing to compromise when he wanted to shift around. She’d gotten into the habit of falling asleep that way, as of late - or, at least, it’s how she liked to be when he was falling asleep, as of late. They’d been on the couch, it had been around four in the morning and he’d been absolutely exhausted.

They’d come back from a hunt, and Wesley had been one of the last people to settle down. Because, dragging as his body had been, he’d wanted to check some things in some books. So, Illyria had stayed up too. Even helped, a little, although she hadn’t quite nailed down what it was Wesley was looking for. In truth, he probably hadn’t been entirely sure of what he’d been looking for.

It’s just he couldn’t ignore the obsessive need to check for it. Then, after Angel had slunk away, to go chatter with Faith over sharp objects and probably sharper memories - if they ended up being honest with each other - Wesley had finally decided it was time to collapse his body on a soft surface.

Gunn had already gone to find a bed, almost immediately after they’d gotten back. Wesley couldn’t make it up the stairs, to check for if there was another spare one - spare bed - so he’d just crumpled onto the couch.

He’d been glad Illyria hadn’t thrown him down on it. She did that, back in LA, back in his apartment. Because she got sick of him barely being awake, being functionally useless. So she’d push him. And he’d stumble, and hit his shoulder or back awkwardly, and end up waking up almost as sore as when he’d went to bed in the first place.

This time, she just let him lie down of his own volition. Probably, because they were at Faith’s, and anywhere that wasn’t alone, was public to her. And publicly she wasn’t supposed to be hurting humans. Even if she didn’t mind doing it when she was alone with him. Since he never seemed to mind.

Since they could never tell the difference between him really just, genuinely hating her, and just letting off steam. He really shouldn’t take it out on her at all. Even though it doesn’t hurt her - nothing hurts her. It’s - it’s setting the habit at all.

One day, she’s not going to be a god-king at all. She’s going to be a girl. A simple, mortal girl. Lost, and breakable, and very close to human. Maybe even human. And Wesley shouldn’t be treating any person this way. He knows that.

He’d dropped onto the couch, and she’d followed after, pressing him in and stiffly yanking a rather nice, warm blanket over the both of them. Illyria had perfunctory tucked the edges in around them, so they’d been snug, secluded.

Wesley thinks, maybe Illyria feels safer, when she can pretend the world is just a handful of things. When she’s just focusing on one, or a few. He thinks maybe it’s why she stares at things, for an awfully long time. Why she lets herself get lost in them, when he knows she isn’t overwhelmed at all. She’s underwhelmed.

Illyria has said so, enough times. ‘This world is small,’ and, ‘I hate the limits of this place,’ and so many other grating variations. She already knows what the scope of creation is - in this marvelous world where he has scarce the time to even try seeing a small fraction of it, she’s probably already noticed a great portion more than most scientists collectively will ever get to.

Instead, it's the small, always slightly new and different, anomalies within her own body, that surprise her. Feelings.

Wesley thinks that whatever Illyria was before, she did not feel things in the same way she experiences them now. That is what is most alien to her, most new out of everything. That is why she uses Wesley as a guide.

Those are the only things she has no reference point for, maybe. If she does, its - well, Wesley is fairly sure what’s left of those are fading, burning away, if they haven’t already.

He just let her, of course. Because there’s only so much energy left in his body, in a day, to fight. To rage about so many endless things that no amount of effort will turn back. And after a half dozen demons smacking him around until his stronger friends finished clearing them up - because a slayer, a vampire, and a fallen god, just last longer in a brawl - he just doesn’t have much effort left in him.

Gunn would get it.

Illyria doesn’t. But she tries. She pulls off his coat, because he forgot, in his haste to look up something in his books earlier. And for a few minutes they’re collapsed, himself just too done to care that it feels odd, while she chucks the coat somewhere and it thumps on a wall. While she pulls the blanket around them again, buries her fingers into his shirt, clinging, the coolness of her skin bleeding through to his skin.

Then a few more moments, and she’s warmed it - her skin - and now it just feels comfortable.

Dangerously comfortable.

Illyria isn’t tired. Even if she is, it simply isn’t on a level comparable to his very human endurance having run out.

She slips her fingers through his hair, all oddly like steel beams, prying him like a specimen on a plate, under a microscope. Wesley lets her, and eventually her fingers turn some semblance of gentle, of careful clumsiness, a mimicry of himself, of Faith, of the touch of people she’s watched and felt.

It feels so nice. Wesley could let himself get lost in it. So he does.

He didn’t think, then, about how he should maybe have just stopped them there.

Wesley didn’t think, didn’t think at all. Except he did. He thought about it quite a lot. More than he will ever confess to anyone. He thought about Fred. He thought about Illyria. Wesley thought about shadows, and the simple moral responsibility of it all. But it wasn’t really simple at all.

He’d reached out, stroked down her back, her sides, in kind. Because Wesley knows, Illyria likes it. She likes being a part of life. Instead of some awful observer, an entirely extra layer of trapped. She’s infuriated by it.

Illyria wants Wesley to be the one to touch her, anyway. She’s said so, enough times. More than enough.

Wesley wishes he could just forget, that she did. Pretend he doesn’t know.

But he’s too gone for pretending. Wesley is a long way past that.

And Illyria - Illyria can be nice. When she wants to be. It isn’t as if she’s unpleasant. In her own, bizarre sort of way, she feels safe. Comfortable.

She has no right to judge him. She’s a monster - and that thought, he should’ve stopped himself, for thinking like that. Thoughts like that are what got him into bed with Lilah.

Besides, Illyria is nothing like Lilah. They aren’t anything like - aren’t at all similar to what Wesley had with Lilah. Illyria is unique.

It’s more that… Illyria knows what a god awful mess he is. What a broken disaster. And if she doesn’t care, if she utterly, completely, wants to be pushing forward anyway? Who’s he to say she’s making a mistake. It’s not like she doesn’t brutally, _clearly,_ know what she’s getting.

He knows what she is. At least, he knows as much as he’s ever going to get. Does it even matter? The future is where Illyria is, and all of the past Illyria is wrapped around a corpse he can’t deal with. Illyria had pulled his head toward hers - had shifted, brought her lips to his.

Wesley had simply returned in kind. It was slow. Gentle. Illyria had been so delicate about it, trying not to be anyone else. Not Fred, not Faith, not a mockery of him. Not her old self, an alien at this. Just a lost, trapped mortal girl. Trying to find her way.

Some part of Wesley didn’t want to hurt her by breaking the moment.

But when she’d pulled away, perhaps to gauge his response, he’d known this was leading to something bad for them. Wesley had still cradled her, in his arms, as she’d stared, trying to see something only she was looking for. “I don’t think this will lead to anything good,” he remembers saying softly. Trying to be gentle, like the kiss.

“We don’t know that,” she replied, equally hushed in the darkness of the early morning. “I want to try.”

He should’ve told her he didn’t. But Wesley, in that moment, hadn’t wanted to lie.

So Illyria had taken his silence as consent, and surged forward to kiss him again. This second press, had been clumsier, stiff fallen god trying to press and then relax, belatedly lenient. Wesley had found himself just pulling her back towards him, grabbing hold of her hair, and she’d held him, desperate, clinging back.

Wesley should have felt wrong. He didn’t. Nothing about it felt wrong. But he knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere good.

That’s what he wanted to keep telling himself. That it wasn’t good.

But it felt fine. It felt perfect.

Maybe he was too tired, for all the things to hurt that should have. To Illyria, there had been nothing holding her back, no pain plaguing her mind. No leftover anger for him, for humanity, for anything. Not that he could tell.

She’d pressed forward until she’d rolled on top of him, and they’d kept kissing, lost.

Illyria had slid her hand down his sides, pressing up his shirt, claiming the skin. He’d done the same. He’d forgotten it had ever been anyone else’s skin, too caught up.

Wesley knew that had been wrong. He should never have let himself forget. But, at the time, he did.

He’d slipped his hands up her dress, pushed her underwear to the slide, slipped his fingers in the wetness there. Illyria had let out sounds, so much softer and nicer then the harsh remarks she bit out in the day, with the others. She’d leaned forward and kissed his neck - bitten, too hard, far too hard.

“Bite gentler, just enough to feel good. Not enough to draw blood.” And she’d tilted her head, curious, engaged, so he’d shifted forward and kissed down her neck. Holding her close and steady, moving his lips downward, rising blue trailing in the wake of him. She’d squirmed, huffing out more lovely sounds, then pushed downward into him - because what was his grip, to a fallen god - marking him in kind. It’d felt so very, very, good.

Illyria had pulled his hand away from where it worked her clit, forced it above his head. While she did, he surged forward, kissing the top of her breasts, delighted as she shook, just barely, but because of him. She let him. Let his free hand move to grab them, pinching, until her nipples were hard, smoothing his hands over her, teasing.

Illyria didn’t care how much he bit, or how hard he handled her. For her, it probably wasn’t even enough, skin like armor, and all that. She’d pressed up Wesley’s shirt, frustrated with it, and made him lean up so she could fling that, too, somewhere out of reach.

Then she’d grabbed his hands again, resolute to stop them from exploring. Wesley wanted to be inside of her.

Once both of his hands were on either side of his head, he just stared at her, curious. One must have patience, with a god. It’s not as if he’d had anywhere to be.

Sleep could wait. Nightmares weren’t often worth rushing to. Illyria had halted, some annoyance only she caught up with making her eyes flicker, staring too harshly into the atoms of his skin. He’d kept himself from asking ‘what’.

Eventually, he’d tried to reach her with his lips, kiss her again. Illyria wasn’t having it. “How do you stand it?” She’d kept glaring. “Having so few hands?”

“I suppose, I make due.” Wesley had wanted to laugh. He’d felt so - comfortable.

For once the sight of Illyria, was just that. All lost, frustrated, fury. All familiar fluctuating body heat trapped against him, heavy and inescapable, and perfectly fine.

She’d hesitantly let go of one of his arms - the left one - and slipped her grip to his inner thigh, squeezing, trailing, taking hold of him and playing.

Wesley didn’t bother asking, how she knew what to do. He tried to bring her close to him again, but Illyria seemed happy enough to hold him away, now, at the mercy of her working him up. It’s not as if he could’ve done much, given her strength. Struggling would’ve only been for the benefit of her amusement. And he’d had such a long day.

So he’d just enjoyed it, kissing the skin of Illyria he could touch, gripping her body. Watching her. She’d looked lovely, in the darkness, in the faint moonlight coming in through the window. Her eyes seemed to overtake everything, and she watched him back.

When he couldn’t help but moan, Illyria had seemed so ecstatic. And then, upon finding the touch that set him off just right, she’d done it again, over and over. He’d felt himself, leaking. Felt Illyria shift herself, until she was balanced on one of his thighs, start grinding herself on it.

The sight had been unbearably fantastic.

“You know, I’m not usually the one held down.” He stuttered, in between gasps, because Illyria wasn’t giving him even a hint of a break. Wesley had reached down, trying to slow her hand, confer to her the necessity of pacing somehow, through will alone - but she was Illyria, and his hand did nothing to alter her relentless movements.

“With that other woman - Lilah?” Illyria had - had overheard too many private conversations with Angel. Rude.

“Y-yes.”

“Do you like your new position?” Wesley did laugh, in between the gentle thrashing and moaning, trying to inch away from Illyria a moment, trying to get her to give him a break. He felt himself working up, too soon, too much.

“It certainly isn’t - disappointing.” Before he could really ask - because asking is all he could’ve done, with Illyria - she was smiling, brilliant and sly and Wesley could have looked at it forever. And he was crooning, and trying to silence himself, and coming, and Illyria wasn’t stopping -

And just kept not stopping. Until it hurt, until he plead with her, “Please, please,” and she’d slowed, stopped the barest minimum of what he would’ve liked, and then just went on touching him again.

And it was too much, too sharp - maybe Illyria had the right idea, comparing this to Lilah - and Wesley begged her again. Illyria let go of his right arm, slipped her own fingers down, to touch herself, press into that warmth - and Wesley couldn’t help but watch. But forget to beg her to stop, despite the sensitivity, because she was sliding against him, collapsing over him, and he got to hold her.

Illyria’s fingers on him, loosening and clumsy, as he pulled her face to his, and stroked it. Pressed kisses to her temple. Watched her get off, grinding against him, rubbing herself.

It was nothing like Lilah. Illyria didn’t beg, didn’t get off on being told what to do - although there was always time to find out, one day. She just was - was so many things, and most of all, she was in his arms.

She was blinking up at him, breath harsh, catching herself, heavy on his chest. Illyria stretched out, coming back down, her hands coming up to pull at his hair and face and shoulders, grounding herself.

When they finally caught themselves, Illyria was smiling, barely, into the skin of his shoulder. Her head was tilted towards his, and they were just looking. Both sleepy eyed and sated.

In the quiet, she’d hummed to herself. A noise Wesley never thought he’d hear. “That was nice.”

He hummed in agreement, and felt a smile tugging at his lips as well. Before he’d let himself think, Wesley had turned toward her and kissed her again, soft gentle presses, short staccato over and over. Getting out his giddiness. Admiring her.

When he’d pulled away, her eyes had almost looked - warm.

They’d found themselves cuddling, again. Then Illyria had reached down, to tease him again, or maybe overwhelm him - and he’d grabbed her hand, so fast compared to the heavy lull he’d felt. Illyria, for her part, had let him stop her. Watching curiously.

It had felt so good.

“You know, in the future, you should ask permission. If you want to hold someone down, or tie them up.”

“Tie them up?” Illyria’s gaze had lit up, her fingers tightening where they’d rested on his skin.

“And in future - if someone,” he didn’t say himself, of course, even though that might as well have been an inevitability, “says stop, then you should.”

“You were -”

“Don’t worry, I was fine with it. More than fine. I just mean, in future. So that there isn’t ambiguity.”

Illyria considered it. “When that woman asked you to stop, did you?”

“That isn’t comparable.”

She still waited, intent on the answer.

“I - that woman never wanted me to stop. It just turned out, that she was willing to do anything. There wasn’t ever a point, where she would’ve. It just worked out that way.”

Illyria clearly found the response insufficient.

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have - what I did with her, wasn’t healthy. I don’t know if I would’ve stopped, if she’d asked. I don’t know that she would’ve, if I’d ever let her take control. We didn’t use safe - we should have. We weren’t - the whole point was that were were using each other. It…”

It had been what? A game, a sick fucked up thing he shouldn’t have done to somebody, like when he locked that other woman in a closet? A seduction that never should have started. A tug from her, then he was pushing, because she kept trying to drag it out of him, and he kept refusing until he’d finally thought ‘what the hell.’ And then, surprisingly, except perhaps not at all, she’d gotten off on it. She’d loved it. There hadn’t been a line he’d been able to cross.

And oh, he’d tried. The whole point, at first, had been to push her. Too far, call her out on her bullshit, until she was too uncomfortable to keep fucking him just for her stupid little game. But, of course, she’d been just as twisted and fucked as him. She’d just kept loving it.

Wesley missed her.

Lilah was awful.

But he supposed that’s why they got along so well. They both were. Even if he never admitted, not to her - never to her - that every time she’d said it, part of him had agreed.

“You don’t have to talk about it. If it is unpleasant.”

Illyria is looking at him, gentle, and it is nothing like Fred. Nothing like anyone he knows.

She is something else. “Illyria,” he whispers, just wanting to say her name. Wanting to appreciate it, appreciate her, how good he feels, right now.

She presses into his shoulder again, almost nuzzling.

“But what do you do?” She mutters, eventually, lips soft against his skin. “If you want to enjoy them struggling.”

He catches her gaze again, presses a quick kiss to the top of her head. “You agree beforehand, what kind of struggling they’re okay with. What kind of holding down. That sort of thing. Then, if you want to hear ‘stop’ without stopping, you come up with a safe word.”

Illyria pulls herself rather suddenly up, until she’s hovering over him, inches away, demanding. All of her weight is on his thighs, his chest, her hands bracing against his shoulders. “What word?”

“Any word. Just, once you hear it, you stop. Then you can check in with them, ask if they’d like you to slow down, or to stop the whole thing. You can use two words - one for being more careful, one for stopping sex - or whatever it is you’re doing, altogether.”

Illyria looks as if she’s learned a new spell. A new spell after several millennia of already knowing all of the important ones, in her opinion.

“How about ‘sunflower’ to stop? And ‘marshmallow’ to ask for conditions to be altered?”

“Why those words?” Unlike all of the other times, when curiosity over Illyria is followed by sudden dread coming up, it’s just there. Pleasant, light wonder, like before all of this - before even, becoming a watcher - just learning stuff because he liked it.

Before the obsession. The threats. The endless train of mistakes.

It’s nice. “The word sunflower was in a song I heard recently, I like the song. And you keep bringing up marshmallows, whenever you hear about fires.”

  
\---

  
Before the night they’d touched each other, they’d gone into the woods, in this town. As soon as Wesley had noticed a fire pit, he’d kept bringing up how nice it’d be to sit down and start a campfire, if they got the time. How Illyria would probably like the taste of roasted marshmallows. She, of course, had looked at him like he’d grown two heads, and put up with the ranting. Wesley had just assumed she’d been tuning him out.

And so, that night, he’d taught Illyria the hesitant beginnings of bdsm. But ultimately what was more concerning, after that particular night, Illyria had felt she’d had the right to ask about his sexual history. Notably, what he’d gotten up to with Lilah. But it wasn’t a stretch, to imagine eventually she’d venture out with her prying.

She seemed quite piqued by the idea of doing what he’d done to Lilah, to him. Except not at all, not even a little, because Illyria didn’t seem to execute anything the way he would have. And he was glad for it, because ultimately, his would’ve been a bad, dangerous, regrettable example. Illyria, for all her lack of experience and uncontained fury at the human race… was taking to her lessons. Was perfectly considerate.

She was delightful.  
  
  
\---  
  


Illyria was pulling Wesley, lost in his pondering, into the magic shop she’d located without the need of his directions. Wesley wonders if it’s wrong, if it’s a bad thing, that he thinks of her so favorably.

He probably shouldn’t.

But she can be so pleasant, when she wants to be. Charming, almost, in her own bizarre sort of way. Like now, when she goes over to a shelf, somehow looking through the shelves and jars and multiple walls, and seems to pinpoint all of their desired ingredients. Then glowering, blue eyes set into fiery spite, as she makes herself walk around the obstacles and walls, instead of just reaching through the weak matter lying in front of her.

He thinks it ought to be wrong, that he’s fond of that. Of her.

Wesley can’t manage to summon up the distaste, though. Not right now, at least. Not that night. A part of him worries, a part he keeps ignoring but knows he should acknowledge. That what they did has set a tone, and an expectation. Something that has taken a barrier out from between them. And Illyria isn’t the kind of creature to put it back up.

He doesn’t think she is, anyway.

 


End file.
